[ssf] pillows and prayers :: n'nineteen :: none news

hardcastle adam at diamat.org.uk
Fri Aug 21 04:12:14 BST 2009


11/08/09 01:16 i posted:

> one point one :: these new puritans
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AC4D62B6AFCD8C9A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&v=yHtTZVlFbJM
> 
> one point two :: shit disco
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwPtWHNqJIo
> 
> one point three :: simain mobile disco
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av42ORmgg9Y 


  i play the above three tracks quite often to cheer myself up
  and i thought: "well, you know what *thought* did, dunt ya"

  seriously though, morale is a big issue, i don't whether folk
  picked up this story in the independent:

  'There is no refuge, no place to go to deal with your grief'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/there-is-no-refuge-no-place-to-go-to-deal-with-your-grief-1769938.html

  i reposted it here ...

  The Myth of Sisyphus
  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/08/436006.html

  ... between naps

  army rumours attracts more comment, nineteen pages so far about
  this story -- on page seventeen nigegilb quotes from a recent
  foreign and commonwealth office report:

  Re: anonymous Welsh Guards captain in paper today?
  http://www.arrse.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic/p=2795926.html#2795926

  <snip>

  232. A number of commentators have argued that there was a lack of
  clarity about why the UK was in Helmand.

  * Brigadier Andrew Mackay, who commanded British forces in Helmand
    in 2007, is reported to have been struck by the lack of clear
    direction "from above" and is quoted as saying there was a sense of
    "making it up as we go along."[384]

  * Stephen Gray's book Operation Snakebite is just one of many accounts
    to highlight the apparent disconnect between different Whitehall
    departments.[385] Mr Gray quotes the former UK Ambassador to Kabul,
    Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, as saying that "a lot of people had been
    rather naïve about what could be done here in Afghanistan. There was
    still sort of a hangover of misplaced optimism."[386]

  * Military analyst Daniel Marston argues that the mission was
    initially "hampered by the fact that HMG and the Ministry of Defence
    had generally failed to stipulate that what was needed was a COIN
    [counter-insurgency] campaign." He adds that the mission was
    originally presented as a peace support and counter-narcotics
    operation, primarily as a matter of UK domestic political
    expediency.[387]

  * James Fergusson suggests that many of the soldiers in Helmand
    including more senior officers had only "the haziest idea of what
    Herrick 4 was supposed to achieve". He adds: In this they were no
    different to most of the British public. Some of them thought the
    fighting was about poppies, and the need to curtail and control the
    world's biggest source of opium. Some thought it was about the War
    on Terror, and conflated the Taliban with Al Qaeda in the most
    general way. Others were closer to the mark when they said it was
    about policing the world, and bringing democracy and governance to
    a benighted nation.

  </snip>

    hmmm ... "making it up as we go along"

    a character i know called *subjectivity* wrote recently:

    "but in the real, it's like 'the lady doth protest too much',
     like take the war, so many fucking half baked reasons are
     offered up by the politicians, as to why we are in afghanstan,
     so many lies, too many to mention, objectively"

     [Global Power and Global Government
      http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/434999.html?c=on#c229027]

    but in recent news, uncle osama sticks on twenty ...

    "Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again.

    "If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even
     larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more
     Americans.

    "So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental
     to the defence of our people."

    ... no wish-washy bringing of "democracy and governance to
    a benighted nation" malarky, no, ding-dong, stick to 911

    do you think, we could be at that stage of human history
    where we allow a great deal of real and understandable hurt
    to be manipulated in the atoms of our body politic
    so enough of us get confused into thinking, that
    we best hurt back, and hurt back first and hurt back often ...

    i know another character called *Foss* who quoted Linus
    Torvalds and juxtaposed technology and politics in a comment to:

    "Breaking the Silence:" Testimonies of Israeli Soldiers
    http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/435288.html?c=on#c229300

    "'I agree that it's driven by selfish reasons, but that's how all
      open source code gets written!

      We all *scratch-our-own-itches*. It's why I started Linux,
      it's why I started git, and it's why I am still involved.

      It's the reason for everybody to end up in open source, to
      some degree,' .... 'So complaining about the fact that
      Microsoft picked a selfish area to work on is just silly.

      Of course they picked an area that helps them.
      That's the point of open source -- the ability to make the
      code better for your particular needs, whoever the "your"
      in question happens to be ...'

     Would you think it likely that the testimonies could be the
     product of the soldiers scratching-their-own-itch, so to speech,
     or do you know for sure it's all a load of bollocks."


   And that kinda mixed things up, in my head at least with copyright
   and freedom:

   * How the Swedish Pirate Party Platform Backfires on Free Software
     http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/435106.html

   * Copyright Law and Online Freedom
     http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/435211.html

   * [Upd-discuss] NY Times: $675,000 for Tenenbaum
     http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/upd-discuss/2009q3/002015.html


   and i posted the links to the tracks, as a mental short hand
   and in the hope of delivering a medicinal musical pick-me-up

   i hope it didn't jar, i understand the older generations
   compare modern music to the noise generated by threshing machines

  here's some older stuff
  acceptable in the eighties:

  --------------------------------------------------------

  one point four :: pigs on porpoise :: well done underdog
  copyright control
  http://www.thenightingales.org.uk/pigslp.htm


   Well did you hear about the Irishman
   Who opened a Tandoori restaurant
   He did quite well for himself
   It was a lucrative line of business
   And he was competent where it counted
   Sing "well done underdog"
   She was OK after all, well done underdog

   She ran a shop, and started riots
   Saying "here folk take back your money"
   To social pleaders with no idea
   She said "Give 'em your answer honey"
   And I'll for one, will struggle on
   Chewing on my hot dog
   Though the Bombay stale, and the mustard hard
   The meat doggone underdone

   I eat in Birmingham, where the council has
   Just passed a new resolution
   That from now on, they plant thinner trees
   So muggers, they can't hide behind them
   And believe or not, I'm told its fact
   Blimey when we talk of pressure
   Well here's something that'll cheer you up
   Did you know they have free phones in Cuba ...

  --------------------------------------------------------

  one point five :: pigs on porpoise :: the crunch
  Robert Lloyd :: copyright control
  http://www.thenightingales.org.uk/words/the_crunch.htm


   As long as money talks you can't buy the truth
   As long as money speaks you won't hear the truth
   In the first case, I am assuming corruption
   I know you cannot work out a fair price
   And, second, those upholding chatty coinage
   Must have motives kept disguised and that's not truth
   Truth is plural

   Pleasure is an inspirational act
   They pit pleasure against the conscience
   To determine what pleasure shall entail
   They take one man's word and turn it against him
   So people will require distress in comfort
   Pleasure is pleasing to accept, distress needs learning

   And the idea of education,
   When devised with this in mind,
   Makes the untold easier to swallow
   And the idea of tradition, when devised with this in mind,
   Makes their taught laws easier to follow

   So surround the pupils with your folklore
   This requires no groundwork by the students
   Injections of learning supports the fascist mysticism
   Which balances the principle of pleasure with one of achievement
   This achievement can be faded out in the long term
   To leave them helplessly in place
   And wanting money, needing exchange

   So is money the sole downpressor of truth?
   We can watch cash's effect but downstairs live the causes
   The causes are true realism, but this is a problem
   Money can mask the causes, which in turn could kill cash
   So, we try to make a pleasurable living
   Masks above death before birth
   Back to square one ...


  --------------------------------------------------------

  one point six :: partly poetics
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD8KWWspIrw




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